Filmmaker Statement

A man is confronted by his violent past while living in a limbo of his own making. “The Seventh Circle,” directed by Alexandra Velasco, is a frenzied experimental horror film soaked in isolation and ambiguity. Whispering to himself in Spanish, a man called El Minotauro moves through a cavernous home. He scrubs his rug, swims in his pool, eats at his table, agonizing over something unknown. When a man in a cowboy hat arrives for a visit, El Minotauro reacts unpredictably. Composed as a mixed-media collage — digital, Super 8, found footage — Velasco’s film is an exercise in atmosphere that finds potency with kinetic editing and vivid setting. -KA.